Lifelong Enemy (Please Vote!)

Lifelong Enemy (Please Vote!)

Summer vacation passed quickly.

Adam, starting in second gear, successfully got his driver's license. His driving skills left even experienced driver Emmett dumbfounded.

Drifting through turns, overtaking through drainage ditches—things Emmett would never even dare imagine, Adam handled with effortless mastery.

Whenever Emmett asked about the techniques, Adam would merely smile without answering. If pressed too hard, he would brush him off with, "Talent and good looks."

Emmett could understand talent, but what the hell did driving skills have to do with good looks?

Fortunately, Emmett only talked big. With his tendency to play it safe, there was no way he would dare practice that kind of driving.

The new semester began.

Adam and the others were already tenth graders.

Because of the credit system, although the four members of the Fruit Hard Candy Band were classmates, they had fewer and fewer classes together.

Emmett was naturally doing the worst. He had even failed a few courses and had not earned enough credits, so he could only retake them.

Adam and Juno proceeded steadily as usual.

Little Sheldon, urged repeatedly by all the teachers, even had the principal personally arrange admission to a private high school with full tuition waived and a scholarship. But he was ultimately too young to attend. Still, unable to tolerate the stupidity of high school any longer, he had Grandma drive him to the best public university in the state every week to attend classes alongside the college students.

Before long, every college student in the lecture hall was both amazed by Little Sheldon's genius and irritated by how obnoxious he was.

Especially during in-class quizzes, whenever Little Sheldon looked at their papers, shook his head, and sighed, nearly everyone felt the same way as the teachers at County High School—they wanted to beat that annoying brat to death.

Fortunately, there was always someone better.

"What's wrong, Sheldon? Not happy?"

At lunch, Adam saw Little Sheldon listlessly poking at his food without eating and casually asked.

"No."

Little Sheldon denied it at first. Then, seeing all three of them looking over, he pursed his lips. "Fine. I do have some strange feelings I don't know how to express. My Grandma says it's jealousy, but I don't think so."

"Jealousy?"

Adam's eyes lit up, and he said excitedly, "Did you meet... someone smarter than you?"

The first person he thought of was that gifted girl, Paige, the person he had been waiting for all along.

Adam believed that as long as he became friends with her, his Wisdom Points would definitely surge again.

"How could that be!"

Little Sheldon's voice turned shrill. "She may look smart, but she is absolutely not smarter than me!"

"She?"

Juno was interested too.

"Tell us already!"

Emmett perked up as well. He had noticed that something was off with Little Sheldon's mood, and thinking of Grandma's mention of jealousy, he felt an indescribable excitement.

It was not that he lacked loyalty. Little Sheldon's every gesture usually carried the unmistakable message of "stupid Earthlings" and "you're all just talking apes." He was simply too irritating.

Now that he suddenly heard someone might have slapped Little Sheldon in the face intellectually, naturally he wanted Little Sheldon to share whatever was making him unhappy so everyone else could enjoy it.

"Her name is Paige Adler."

Little Sheldon had no choice but to frown and explain, "Like me, she attends university lectures."

"How old is she?"

Juno immediately hit the key point.

"..."

Little Sheldon suddenly did not want to talk anymore. His characteristic High-Definition Photographic Memory involuntarily replayed the entire scene of his first meeting with Paige.

That day, the moment he entered the lecture hall, he saw a little girl sitting in his seat. It made him very unhappy, but he still reluctantly greeted her.

"Hello."

"Hello."

The blonde girl was pulling books from her pink backpack. Hearing him, she looked up and smiled, then told Little Sheldon her name was Paige Adler.

"You look very young."

Little Sheldon asked in surprise, "Did one of the adults in this class bring you here?"

"No."

Paige smiled. "After Dr. Sturgis heard my lecture on quantum chromodynamics at high temperatures, he invited me to audit his class."

"I see."

Little Sheldon's expression darkened slightly.

"Yep."

Paige stared at Little Sheldon. Seeing his reaction, her smile became even sweeter. "He's super nice to me!"

"Interesting."

Little Sheldon found this Paige unbearably annoying. He could not hold back any longer and said coldly, "Let me make this clear. Dr. Sturgis is my mentor, and he's also my Grandma's boyfriend. He's even had spaghetti and hot dogs at my house."

Dr. Sturgis had far too much in common with Sheldon.

If Sheldon had not met Leonard, his heaven-sent roommate, in the future, there was a ninety-nine percent chance he would have become another Dr. Sturgis.

A seventy-year-old virgin, living for scientific research, utterly clueless about human relationships, alone with no friends, and, most likely, mental illness as well.

Little Sheldon's Grandma was still an attractive elderly woman and very popular among seniors. Since she drove Little Sheldon to his classes, she got to know Dr. Sturgis, and the two unexpectedly sparked something between them.

The most excited person about this was not either of them, but Little Sheldon. He felt this was the best possible way to improve the family's overall intelligence, so he took every initiative, looking as if he wanted to marry Grandma off to John immediately.

Now that a little girl had suddenly appeared to compete with him for John's attention, of course Little Sheldon blew up.

"So?"

Paige snickered.

Little Sheldon became even angrier and said bluntly, "Do you realize this is an extremely advanced course? We'll be discussing how to derive nucleon physics from the quark model..."

Paige cut him off with a smile. "Do you know whether he'll teach us how to use matrix multiplication for eight-color gluon calculations?"

Little Sheldon opened his mouth, but his momentum immediately stalled. "I don't know."

"Then do you know how to apply Leibniz's integral rule?"

Paige pressed.

Little Sheldon's face turned ugly, and the corner of his mouth twitched. He forced out, "I don't know."

Paige sneered. "Then what do you know?"

Little Sheldon was almost crying as he shouted, "I know you're sitting in my assigned seat!"

Paige: ...

Little Sheldon sat down in a huff, completely unwilling to pay attention to the annoying girl beside him. Unfortunately, she was very interested in him.

"How old are you?"

Little Sheldon finally found his confidence and proudly said, "Ten."

"I'm ten too."

Paige smiled even more brightly. "When's your birthday?"

"February 26."

Little Sheldon answered instinctively.

"Mine's June 25."

Paige looked back over the lecture hall and smiled happily. "I'm the youngest student in the class. How interesting."

Little Sheldon could only roll his eyes at her. His blacklist had not taken shape yet, or Paige would definitely have ranked first on it and become his lifelong enemy.

"I hate her!"

After finishing the story, Little Sheldon gave his conclusion.

"Hahahaha!"

Emmett could not stop himself from bursting into laughter.

Little Sheldon clearly did not know one saying: the people you hate often reflect something of yourself.

Adam and Juno could not help laughing either. They exchanged a glance, but Adam's smile suddenly froze. Something strange flashed through his eyes as he remembered those news reports...